“Hostile response?” Addison said, backing away.
“Your heartbeat is elevated, your pupils dilated and you are secreting adrenaline. You are in flight or fight mode. Why?”
“Oh, right. Um, I just thought you’d––”
“Thought I would what?”
“Y’know,” Addison said, gesturing at the bed, where Taka was now propped up on his elbow. “Disapprove.”
“What is there to disapprove of?”
Addison felt the tips of his ears glow red. Two leant over to whisper something in Four’s ear, glancing knowingly at them. Her expression turned immediately to disgust.
“Unbelievable,” she said. “An internalised and outdated shame response based on prejudicial sociosexual norms from your own parochial era.”
Addison didn’t know what to say.
“You people!” Four snarled, suddenly enraged. “No wonder you destroyed the planet, you couldn’t even accept basic truths about yourselves!”
Feeling a little foolish, Addison tried to change the subject. “Okay,” he managed. “So if we haven’t done anything wrong why are you here?”
The levellers exchanged a look.
“There is a problem with the levelling machinery,” Two said. “It will necessitate a delay of one day.”
Taka was upright immediately.
“Another one? Has it finally broken?”
“A temporary delay, I assure you,” Two said. “Five will have it up and running momentarily. But in the recess, yesterday’s returnees are to be tried tomorrow.”
“And this required all three of you to tell us?”
There was a pause. Two nudged Four, who suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable.
“One has been impressed with your recent performance with the new returnees,” she said, through gritted teeth. “He wished it known he appreciates your efficiency. As such, you have no duties today.”
On the bed, Taka laughed out loud.
“He sent you here to give us a gold star?”
“Do as you wish with your time,” Four snapped, turning to leave. “Just stay out of our way.”
“Very gracious of you,” Addison called after her. “We’re very much obliged!”
He turned around, ready for Taka to crack a joke about the whole thing, but was surprised to find his lover staring at him strangely from the bed.
‘What was that?” Taka asked quietly.
“What was what?”
“You. Then. With them.”
“What d’you mean?”
“You thought they were going to tell us off.”
“I’m sorry,” Addison groaned, flopping down onto the bed “I just expected, y’know, judgment. It is kind of their thing.”
“Judgement about what?”
“You know. You and me. Because we’re––”
He trailed off, and Taka gave him a searching look.
“Addison,” he began. “These people are literally from the future. Centuries ahead. I very much doubt we even factor into their thinking.”
“They resurrect people just to kill them, Tak.”
Taka pulled a face. “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Addison tried to laugh, but from his expression it was clear Taka wasn’t going to let this go.
“What happened to you?” he asked, leaning back. “It’s like you’re almost waiting to be punished, like you expect it.”
Addison swung his legs out of bed so he was facing towards the door.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“You’re fifteen years behind me, Tak,” he sighed. “You don’t look it, but you’re from an entirely different generation. I saw your bio, your levelling age, you were two decades later than me. Two! I can’t even imagine how different our lives must have been.”
“The twenties weren’t exactly a picnic, Ads.”
“But there would have been some progress, right? Socially speaking, how open people could be. It wasn’t like that for me. It wasn’t the most forward-thinking time. In the cities maybe, but out in the sticks, where I came from? Christ, with my folks I might as well have been living in Victorian times.”
Taka leaned in closer.
“You’ve mentioned your parents before,” he said, leaning on his shoulder. “Want to talk about them?”
He nearly did. For a split-second he nearly laid out the decades of anguish. The early years, where his parents’ beliefs had convinced Addison there was something wrong with him. The adolescence spent walking on eggshells, after he’d grasped the truth but kept it hidden. The escape to the city, university, new people around whom he no longer needed to pretend. And then, his moment of lunacy, coming home with a head full of ideas and the shining delusion that if he could accept himself, perhaps his parents could too.
The memory was seared into his brain: the bungalow’s tiny front room, the ancient brown wallpaper and stucco ceiling. And his parents, unheeding at first, then unfolding in a slow explosion of disgust. The things his father had said, the things his mother hadn’t, they haunted him to this day. They were long-dead now, centuries in their graves, but the weight of their words still hung around Addison’s neck like a stone. They were with him even now, at the end of the world.
But now there was Taka.
With him there was no performing, no act, no pretending to be something other than what he was. There was just the plain, unadorned truth, and to Addison that was everything.
“Soon,” he said, finally rolling over. “Just not yet.”
Taka took this in his stride. Brilliant, wonderful Taka. No judgement, just accepting with a big heart and a bigger grin. It made Addison madly, deliriously happy.
“Look,” Taka said, after a long pause. “I’ve got something to tell you myself. Something important. Something we need to decide on together.”
Addison moved closer.
“What?”
“Not here,” Taka said, putting a hand to his chest. “Tonight. We have the day, let’s enjoy it.”
Addison smiled.
“I can do that.”
* * *
It was the best day of Addison’s life.
Both of his lives.
Taka and he spent the rest of the morning (and most of the afternoon) in his cellsuite, before finally venturing out. The levellers turned in early, exhausted and in need of more dialysis after a long day’s repairs, so the prisoners had the run of the prison.
Addison marvelled at how the institute bloomed to life. It was the same feeling as when Two tweaked his interpreter, but this time with people rather than plants. The balconies and spiralling ramps were thronged with returnees, some in pairs, others by themselves, but all exploring their newly-public space. For the first time Addison got a sense
